


...And Silver Fountains Mud.

by mattador



Category: Cassandra Clare - City of Bones
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:londonsophie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattador/pseuds/mattador





	...And Silver Fountains Mud.

  


  
  
  
  
  


  
[Home](../../)

[Quicksearch](../quicksearch.html)   
[Search Engine](../../cgi-bin/search.cgi)   
[Random Story](../../cgi-bin/random.cgi)

[Upload Story](../../cgi-bin/upload.cgi)

 

  
|    
  
  
  
| 

 

  


## ...And Silver Fountains Mud.

 

Fandom: [Cassandra Clare - City of Bones](http://yuletidetreasure.org/get_fandom_quicksearch.cgi?Fandom=Cassandra%20Clare%20-%20City%20of%20Bones)

 

Written for: londonsophie in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge

by [mattador](http://yuletidetreasure.org/cgi-bin/contact.cgi?filename=75/andsilver)

Alec grabbed Jace by the shoulder and dragged him back, watching the cool carelessness in his eyes flash, just for a moment, to hot, quick anger.

"We're hunting demons, Alec," he said, his voice mild and dry. "Surprise manhandlings are probably not the best idea- I almost cut your throat before I knew it was you."

"You almost electrocuted yourself," Alec countered, nodding past him. "The third rail- you were about to step right on it. And unless you've got a rune for lightning protection written somewhere I don't see-" he fell silent and watched Jace blink in surprise, twisting to glance back at the rail, the clear, bright light from their seraph blades sending shadows flickering across his features. He felt the same surprise and alarm himself- he'd known Jace was being brash, careless, being _Jace_, but it had never occurred to Alec that he might have truly overlooked the rail, have had no idea where he was stepping.

"What's wrong?" he asked, more quietly, dropping the banter completely, before Jace's expression could piece the fractured cool of his mask back together. Mentally, he kicked himself- of course Jace would close himself off the moment his concern seemed serious. No one was allowed to worry about Jace- sublime, superior, incontestable, insufferable. Banter had been the right idea.

"Nothing's wrong," Jace began, and Alec forced himself to act like this was all a joke, and roll his eyes.

"First you almost let yourself get killed, then you let yourself get snuck up on and almost kill me- maybe nothing's wrong, but something's distracting you. I'd rather nobody gets their eye poked out on a seraph blade for whatever it is-"

"Demons," Isabelle said dramatically, almost seeming to materialize out of the darkness of the subway tunnel. They both turned and looked at her as one in sudden, tense alertness.

"We're supposed to be fighting _demons_ down here, boys," she clarified, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. "Not one another. If you'll come along...?"

She swept past them, imperious and elegant, and both of them made the same face at her back, then grinned at each other.

It only took Alec moments to fall back to brooding- one moment longer than it took for Jace to do so. He didn't have to ask what was wrong, not really. Even if he could pry an answer out of the blonde boy, he knew what it would be- and he knew what the real answer was, too, the one Jace would never tell- not even to his oldest and best friend, who he thought of almost- but not quite- as a brother.

The hunt wasn't supposed to be like this. Jace was always more alive, more awake on a hunt than any other time- that was why they were here. Alec had insisted that going on a hunt now was a horrible idea, that it was too dangerous, and they should sit tight in the Institute until their parents returned- and of course Jace, who'd been too distracted to even think of a hunt before then, had bitten onto the idea and fought tenaciously for it, convincing Isabelle almost at once, and pushing Alec past his feigned reluctance. He had thought, then, that things might be all right- that this might be just what Jace needed to come back to himself- but as soon as they snuck past the mundanes at the last subway stop, he'd lost interest, his feral edge dulled by distraction- by the obsession consuming him.

His mind filled with thoughts as dark as the tunnel, Alec walked on, remembering.

* * *

The greenhouse at night smelled like a dream- the heady aroma of the flowers muted, distant, like a word dancing on the end of his tongue, present but obscure. Something about it bothered Alec, and he wondered, briefly, if in some way the scent was a metaphor for Jace- Jace, who vanished from his bed almost every night now, and who he had guessed, rightly, he would find here. He sat bare-chested on the floor, not shivering despite the night's cold, stroking the opening blooms of the midnight peonies Hodge had planted, his hand covered in gold pollen like faerie dust.

He looked distracted, preoccupied, far more so than Alec had seen him before- enough, at least, that he hadn't heard Alec slip in, and that he hadn't looked up and seen him crouching behind the venomous begonias.

"Brotherly love," Jace whispered, sarcasm and bitterness thick and biting in his voice, and Alec almost jumped in startlement, sure he'd been spotted after all. But Jace, of course, had trained him better than that- when faced with a predator, it was better to be still, to be cautious, to bide your time. And so he stayed frozen, guiltily, and waited.

Jace stared at the glowing flowers as their petals showered to the floor, the sick, fixed expression still conquering his features, and laughed bleakly. "I have a family again," he told the wilting blossoms, as if trying out the sound of the words, and, by the twist of his lips, finding them as distasteful as Alec did. _Again_. As if the Lightwoods weren't his family now. As if the past seven years had counted for nothing, the moment fucking Valentine had made his return from death and obscurity. Alec understood, though he didn't want to, how you could love someone despite themselves, however much you didn't want to- but not how that love could eat away everything else, could make someone as headstrong and determinedly possessive as Jace abandon everyone who'd meant something to him, make him pine away and recite moonlist soliloquies to dead flowers.

_"I don't want it,"_ Jace hissed, and Alec felt like standing up and cheering the sentiment. Something bright flashed in his hand as he raised it and slashed at the stems- a fragment of mirror, Alec thought, too small and jagged to be a real blade. "I don't want family like you..." he choked, and his face twisted further, torn between incandescent rage and simple despair. Alec trembled, and then, as Jace forced the last word of his sentence out, felt all the blood drain from him.

"Clary," he whispered. "I don't want you to be my family. I don't-"

Stiff-limbed, livid with anger even through his shock-blanked mind, Alec retreated, careful to keep himself as silent and invisible as he ever had on a hunt.

But then, no hunt had ever scared him more, no demon had left him reeling and uncertain as this.

* * *

They heard it breathing before they saw it- somewhere amidst the clutter that filled the underground chamber, hidden from the subway tunnels with strange, powerful magic that twisted space. The floor groaned beneath the weight of centuries of accumulated detritus- mountains of subway tokens, piles of pearl necklaces and assorted, scattered jewelry, broken and filthy- discarded toys like kaleidoscopes, anything that glinted in the light seemed to be collected here in its own heap, organized and then left to fall back into chaos. The centerpiece of the display was an ornate fountain, pale elegant stone filled with still, dank water, choked and overflowing with the refuse of the surrounding piles of miscellanea.

Alec knew his lore, and in a moment had catalogued everything he saw, and matched it with the wet, leathery rasp of breath like massive bellows, the shift and clink of unseen `treasure' moving beneath the demon's feet.

"A dragon," he whispered in horror. "It's a dragon." He swallowed back his fear. Isabelle turned back to him, incredulity plain on her face, but Jace chuckled, hands tightening on the hilts of his seraph blades.

"Don't be ridiculous, Alec," he said, some unnameable emotion, beautiful and mad, taking shape on his face. Alec knew the look, even if he couldn't name it. It was Jace, back again from wherever he'd been hiding. "It can't be a dragon. Dragons are extinct."

The massive, green-scaled shape burst out of the darkness, roaring in fury, steam pouring from its mouth, and as they turned to meet it, Jace whooping and charging ahead, Alec grinned.

   
Please [post a comment](http://yuletidetreasure.org/cgi-bin/comment.cgi?filename=75/andsilver&filetype=html&title=and%20Silver%20Fountains%20Mud.) on this story.

Read [posted comments](http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/75/andsilver_cmt.html).  


   
  
---  
  
  
  
 


End file.
